A new non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI) drug candidate against HIV has entered a Phase 2b trial triggering a $20 million payment from the ViiV Healthcare Company to Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc of the US.
The European Medicines Agency’s scientific committee has issued a positive opinion for Pumarix, a mock-up vaccine that could be used in a new influenza pandemic. It is an adjuvanted vaccine that induces a response against the H5N1 antigen.
A group of US researchers has reported that breast cancer stem cells, which are thought to be resistant to current anti-cancer therapies, are stimulated by estrogen through a pathway that mirrors normal stem-cell development.
Compared with many other antibody companies, MorphoSys AG has taken the long route to therapeutic antibody development. Founded in 1992, the Munich-based company developed a library, a service business, and risk-sharing discovery partnerships with larger companies, before it brought its first proprietary antibody into the clinic in 2008. But could the proverbial tortoise be overtaking the hares?
Zealand Pharma A/S of Denmark has made an initial public offering of its shares on the Nasdaq OMX exchange in Copenhagen, one of the very few European biotechnology companies to seek a public listing in more than a year.
Advent Venture Partners LLP has raised £75 million for a new fund devoted exclusively to life science investments. The fund will invest primarily in early and mid-stage companies in the UK, Europe and the US.
Clavis Pharma ASA has a strategy for improving the performance of marketed cancer drugs that takes it into the realm of personalised medicine. This strategy is to apply a lipid vector technology to marketed drugs to improve their delivery to cancer cells. A companion diagnostic would then identify the patients for whom these drugs are likely to be most effective.
The European Medicines Agency is set to publish a new guideline advising drug developers on the regulatory requirements for monoclonal antibody-containing medicines that claim to be similar to other, previously marketed products.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has signed a collaboration and licensing agreement with the Vienna-based F-Star Biotechnologische Forschungs-und Entwicklungsges to jointly discover new antibody-derived therapies.
Paion AG has published headline data from a Phase 2b clinical trial of its short-acting sedative remimazolam which, it says, showed the drug performed better than the standard of care, midazolam, in patients undergoing colonoscopy.